Top 8 of 2008

1. Celebrating our 1st year anniversary. We had a wonderful first year and I can’t wait to celebrate many many more. I am so thankful to have such a loving husband and best friend!
2. Watching Cajun grow up. It’s actually been pretty amazing to watch him go from an 8 lbs little puppy to a 90 lbs HUGE dog that can knock me over when he tries to give me a hug. I love him to death and I don’t know what we would do without him (probably have some landscaping in the back yard) :-)
3. Celebrating weddings, birthdays, child births and holidays with family and friends. We have some the best family and friends and it has been awesome to celebrate life events with everyone this year. We’re so thankful to have such close-knit families.
4. Tennessee. Tommy and I had an amazing time together touring the state and just spending some one on one time with each other. It’s definitely a trip I will never forget.
5. LSU National Championship game (1/7/08). I know that seems like such a long time ago but it actually was in 2008 and I love it!!! Geaux Tigers! We had a great time celebrating in New Orleans with hundreds of thousands of Tiger fans.
6. Crystal Beach. Another vacation that I will probably never forget. It was a great relaxing time with lots of friends that hopefully we can make a tradition. Although, since Ike destroyed Crystal Beach we will have to find a different location.
7. Cruise. Yet another vacation (wow we traveled a lot this year). It was fun to experience Tommy’s first cruise and certainly fun to experience repelling for the first time.
8. Job stability, house, car. I am so thankful that we have not been greatly affected by the economic turndown. I’m grateful to still have my job and still be able to pay our mortgage and both have good vehicles to get us to and from work. Everyday it seems like the economy just gets worse and worse so we are so appreciative to still have everything we’ve ever wanted!

I hope your 2008 was great and that 2009 only brings even more happiness!

Christmas 2008

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. It's hard to believe it's already over. We had a very busy few days and enjoyed visiting with all of our family. Last Saturday we had Christmas with Tommy's brother since we was working Christmas day. Then we spent Christmas Eve cooking at our house then eating at my Aunt & Uncle’s house. My dad actually took a visit to the ER Christmas Eve for a staf infection in his leg. He broke his ankle about 4 years ago and has been battling an infection in that leg ever since. But luckily it wasn't anything too major and he was able to go home with a few antibiotics. Christmas day was a little better. We went to my grandparent’s house which is absolutely crazy every year. We have a 50-60 people there with tons and tons of food. We eat everything from teal to geese to meat pies. Anything that my uncle has killed and my grandma has in the freezer is laid on the table. It’s great. After lunch we find a little spot on the floor in the living room and grandpa plays Santa Clause and hands out the hundreds of gifts under the tree. I remember how excited I used to be when I was little to hurry and eat lunch so we could open gifts. Now I just like to see the kid’s faces as they open their gifts. After my grandparents Christmas we headed to Tommy's parents for a little while to open gifts with them. Then we headed to my parents to drop off some food and check to see how my dad was doing. After all of that we headed home and fell asleep. Friday we went to movies to watch Marley & Me. It was pretty good movie. I thought it was going to be a comedy but I laughed and cried throughout the whole thing. It was a good family show. Below are a few pics from my grandparent’s house:

Grandpa as Santa Claus

Tommy sooo excited for gifts

The sea of presents

Aunt Monica so excited for gifts

Grandpa and grandma amongst the sea of presents

Some of the kids finding their spot in the living room.

Uncle Matt and the baby dolls.

Merry Christmas!

I know it's a day late but I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year!

So much to do and so little time

I think it just hit me this weekend that Christmas is THIS THURSDAY! I think I finished my Christmas shopping over the weekend. I even got all of Tommy’s stocking stuffers. And I even have everything wrapped. But for some reason it seems like I forgot something. I don’t who it is but I think I left someone off of the list. I’ve been going through both families and I can’t figure it out. Oh well, I’m probably stressing over nothing. But for now I need to worry about making all of the goodies for Christmas. I’m making cheesecakes bites with a praline sauce to go on top, a chocolate meringue pie, oreo truffles, cornbread dressing, and rice dressing. I actually need to have all of this made for Christmas Eve and I have to work Monday and Tuesday. Not to mention that we’re going out to dinner for a friends birthday Monday night. Wow, I need to get busy. At least I have all of the grocery shopping done. Now it’s just a matter of cooking everything.

Here’s the recipe for EASY oreo truffles in case any of you are interested:
1 pkg Oreo cookies, finely crushed
1 pkg cream cheese, softened
Semi-Sweet chocolate chips (Or Andes mint chocolate chips)

Mix 3 cups of cookie crumbs and the cream cheese until well blended. Shape into 1-inch balls
Freeze for a few minutes to harden
Dip in melted chocolate chips and place on waxed paper. Sprinkle with remaining cookie crumbs or Christmas sprinkles.
Refrigerate 1 hour or until firm.

You can do a lot of different twist with this recipe. You can use white chocolate or mint chocolate in place of the semi-sweet chocolate chips. Or even try using the mint oreo cookies.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Decor

Here's a sneak peak at our Christmas decor...

Ornament detail

Mantle

Mantle

Fireplace

Tree (we went with a gold and red theme this year)

Front door

Ornaments hanging on back door transom

Sneaux Day!

It actually snowed in South Louisiana today. And I'm not talking just some flurries that melt when they hit the ground. We had about 2" of snow on the ground this morning. The sun has been out for a few hours now and we still have snow on the ground. It's crazy. I've never seen so much snow in Louisiana before. We had snow when I was about 4 or 5 years old but it just barely covered the ground. Here are a few pictures from this morning. Cajun had no clue what it was.

All of my landscaping will be dead tommorow.

Tommy's Snow Angel

What my house looks like with a white roof

He had no idea what all the white stuff was.

This looks like it could be a picture from up north but no, it's in my back yard.

Thats one huge icicle.

My itty bitty snowman. My neighbors made one that was about 4 feet tall.

It's Snowing!!!

South Louisiana...and I have 2-3" of snow in my yard :-)
I'm off to build a snowman. I'll post pictures later.

Uncle Matt

My uncle Matt (and 3 other friends) were on their way to go hunting in Nebraska Saturday night and got into a pretty bad wreck right before they were about to get off of the interstate. He hit some black ice and lost control. The 2 guys sitting on the passenger side are still in a hospital in Iowa. One has a broken vertebra in his neck and the other has 4 broken ribs, a broken jaw, and a broken arm. The guy with broken ribs was sitting in the back seat on the passenger side and was ejected from the vehicle. Luckily, my uncle and the guy sitting in the back driver side were able to escape with only a few scratches. Please pray for the 2 that are still in the hospital. One of them has to have a few reconstructive surgeries to redo his jaw. The guy that broke a vertebra in his neck should be up and walking by tomorrow. Hopefully everyone can return home soon.

Tennessee

Well I finally got this post all put together and ready for the blog. Tennessee was absolutely amazing. It was a very relaxing vacation and I really enjoyed spending the week with Tommy. We had a great time and really enjoyed ourselves. The first day we drove all the way to Chattanooga and found a really nice hotel in downtown, the Chattanoogan. We took advantage of the FREE shuttle service around downtown. We rode to the riverwalk and then visited the Big River Grill for dinner which was not very great.
The next morning we drove to Adventures Unlimited for our white water rafting adventure. We didn’t realize we signed up for such an adventure. I almost died twice! Once we were dressed in our wet suits and had the rafts loaded on the trailers we began our “adventure” to the beginning of the river. We rode in 1967 van that was ready to break down any minute. A motorcyclist cut in front of us on the curvy mountain roads. Then he slams on his brakes and antagonizes the driver of our van to try to hit him (which was very possible considering the old brakes on the van). A few seconds later the motorcyclist pulls out a gun and starts to wave it around in the holster. I pretty scared at that point. Our driver, however, was waving his hands around yelling, “Come on cowboy. Show me what you got!” It’s hilarious now but at the time I was hiding behind the seat in front of me praying that we would make it to the river. We eventually lost the motorcyclist and made it to the river. White water rafting was a blast. It was very cold but very fun. The colors on the mountains were beautiful (check out the slideshow for pictures). The photographer for the rafting company was already off for the season we did not get any pictures while rafting but we have plenty others. After rafting we headed back to Chattanooga and got ready to eat dinner at a Murder Mystery Theatre. We went to “An Italian Redneck Wedding” show at the Vaudeville Café Murder Mystery Theatre. I highly recommend this if you are ever in the Chattanooga area. We laughed the entire time, the food was great, and best of all…it’s BYOB! We downed 2 bottles of wine and had a great time.
The next day we walked to the riverwalk and watch a few regatta races (1-6 person canoe races) on the river. Then we toured the Chattanooga Choo-Choo and visited a model train museum which was pretty cool.
We packed up and headed to Rock City which was very touristy and not impressive. We then headed to Gatlinburg and found a hotel for one night. The next morning our main objective was to find a cabin in the mountains. We found a very inexpensive cabin in the mountains with a hot tub on the deck! Exactly what I wanted!! Next, we traveled into the Great Smokey Mountains and hiked to Rainbow Falls which was brutal. It was over 5 miles (round trip) up hill to the waterfall. My legs were on fire. We cooked dinner at our cabin that night and listened to the election results (which made for a pretty bad night).
The next morning we had breakfast in a campground next to a stream and then headed up the mountain to Clingman’s Dome, the highest point the Smokey Mountains. We saw a few patches of snow and even stood on the TN/NC state line. After Clingman’s Dome we went to Laurel Falls which was very pretty and a very easy hike. We decided to give our legs a rest after Laurel Falls and drove through Cade’s Cove. Cade’s Cove was very pretty and we saw horses, deer, and even a coyote. After Cade’s Cove we walked through downtown Gatlinburg which is just a whole bunch of shops and tourist traps. We had dinner at then headed back to the cabin.
The next morning we made our way to Nashville. The first few stops were at outlet malls. We found a huge outlet mall in Sevierville, just outside of Pigeon Forge. This place was HUGE, the largest I have ever seen. We didn’t buy much but I was just impressed by the size of the mall. Once in Nashville, we found a place to stay and then headed to Broadway street. We had a few beer, talked politics, listened to karaoke, and had a really great time. The next day we visited the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Opryland Hotel, and drove by the Opry Mills Mall. The country music hall of fame had a special exhibit on the Hank Williams family which was pretty interesting.
After Nashville we drove to Memphis to visit St. Jude’s Research Hospital and eat some delicious ribs. By this point I was exhausted and ready to head home. So we went straight to St. Jude’s to drop off our donations and then drove to Beale St for some ribs at Blue’s City Café. The ribs were great! We then headed HOME! It was a long drive. I think we left Memphis around 6:00 and didn’t get home until after midnight. Tommy did well and didn’t fall asleep at all. I, however, couldn’t keep my eyes open after 7:00. But it was nice to finally be home.
Check out the pictures in the slideshow of everything you just read about!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

wordless wednesday

Just a preview of the TN trip. It was absolutely beautiful! I still need to put together a blog about everything we did (with pictures included).

Halloween 2008

I know its late for Halloween but I'm just getting around to doing a post about it. Tommy's brother had an engagement party the weekend before Halloween so we dressed up for that. I was Monica Lewinsky with the blue dress with the white stain. And Tommy was Bill Clinton in a suit with a cigar in his mouth. Everyone had a good laugh. We had a great time. For Halloween night we were in Tennessee so we didn't dress up but we saw some pretty strange people in Chattanooga that night. I'll have to write a seperate post about our Tennessee trip. It was amazing. For now, here's pictures of Halloween. Enjoy!

Me, Tommy, his two brothers and future sister-in-law

Priest and pregnant nun

The whole crew. We had a saints player and referee, Fred & Wilma Flinstone, a french maid, little red riding hood and the big bad wolf, Al & Peggy Bundy, Monica & Bill, the preist and the nun, and I'm not sure what the girl in the blue dress was. (And snow white was there but she must have been taking the picture)

Have a great day!

Happy 1st anniversary

"We don't choose to marry the person we can live with, we choose the person we can't live without. We take the good with the bad because we can't imagine living one minute without them."

That quote pretty much sums it all up. Tommy has been an amazing husband and I couldn't imagine not having him in my life. This past year has been incredible. From the wedding and honeymoon to the vacations and cook-offs, we have had a great time standing next to each other and experiencing life hand-in-hand. I love this man with all of my heart. He is everything I ever dreamed of as a little girl and more. He has made so many of my dreams come true. To my wonderful husband – I love you more than words can describe!

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Soon to Be Halloween!!

10 days and counting

As you can probably see from the ticker on the side of my blog, our first anniversary is in only 10 days. I can't beleive it's already been a year since we've been married. It seem like only last month I was standing at the alter with that huge smile on my face.

That was, hands down, the happiest day of my life. But we'll talk more about that later when I do an anniversary post. I'm actually sitting at a car dealership right now getting Tommy's anniversary gift installed onto his truck. He's getting a remote start. And since the traditional gift for first anniversaries is paper, I'm also making him a scrapbook of our first year together. (Thank goodness he doesn't read this blog. He would know everything.) I'm pretty excited about the scrapbook. It's turning out really nice. I'll have to post a few pics. Well I need to go check on the truck to see if it's complete. Have a great weekend!

Another vacation...

Tommy just told me a few weeks ago that he has been planning on going to Tennessee for our first anniversary. This was a complete surprise to me and I am looking forward to going. I've been to TN twice when I was little but I've been wanting to go back in Fall when the trees are changing color and the weather is so beautiful. We've agreed that we are not planning anything and will just travel to TN and decide on the spur of the moment what we want to do. The only 2 things on our agenda is whitewater rafting the first day we are there and camping out one night in our tent. We should have a blast! It makes me nervous that we aren't planning anything because I'm such of a planner and I like to know where I am going and what I will be doing. But it will be nice to just relax and do whatever we feel like doing that day. I can't wait we are leaving on a Friday morning and not coming back until the following Saturday so it will be so much fun!!!

They grow up so quick

No this post is not about kids. Sorry, I don't have any children yet. This is all about my cute HUGE dog, Cajun. I was going through a few pictures the other day and it is amazing how much has grown in just a little over a year. Here is a picture of him the day we got him at 6.5 weeks old...


And here is a picture at 9 weeks old


3.5 months old.


and 6 months old


He is now 14 months old and you can just imagine how big he is now. He can definately knock me over. Gosh I hope my children don't grow up this fast. I keep saying that I can't wait until he's 2 years old and out of the chewing puppy stage but then I will miss his puppy stage. He's not much of a puppy now since he's so big but he still acts like a puppy. I hope everyone has a happy hump day!

under construction

I've updated the look of my blog and it's still a work in progress. I used a digital scrap kit and I a program called paint.NET. IT was actually pretty easy. I never thought I would be able to do it. I was actually about to pay someone to redesign my blog for me but I think it's coming out well so far. I need to change a few of the font colors to match the background and try to figure out to expand the size of the background and then I think I will be done. I hope everyone had a great Monday! Let me know what you think of the new design.

So Clumsy

Tommy just called and told me that he got stung by 2 wasp while at work today. This is usually not a big deal to most adults but poor Tommy he is so accident prone. First he got hit in the nose with a crowbar (by accident) a few years ago and got 3 stiches in the nose. Then he fell 18 feet off of a roof onto concrete in Feburary 2007 and broke 80% of his ribs, a shoulder blade, his hand, and bruised his lung. Then he tells me Monday that one of his friends was picking up some trees with a Bobcat and one large branch was sticking out and about to swing and hit the cab of the bobcat and possibly hurt Tommy's friend...so Tommy decides that he is going to reach up and grab the large branch. As he reaches for it, his friend pulls the bucket of the bobcat down and the brach slaps Tommy across the head. I'm telling you, I just sit around and wait everyday for the phone call of what accident happened today. Everytime we do something around the house Tommy cuts his hand or smashes his foot, or hurts his knee. Just last week when he was boarding up the house for Gustav he was screwing into a piece of wood and the drill slipped and he screwed the screw into his finger (OUCH!!). And he just acts like none of this is a big deal. Poor thing, he has bad luck. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Cruise pictures

Here is a collection of pictures from our cruise. Not all of them downloaded but as you can see we had a blast. The first day was a day at sea and we enjoyed taking in the sun and searching the ship. The second day was at Progresso and we went on an ATV tour of a farm. The next day was at Cozumel and we had a BLAST! We went rock climbing, repelling, snorkeling, etc etc. And we even got to enjoy Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville and my favorite place, Carlos & Charlies! The last day was a day at sea and just very relaxing. We had a great time!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

P.S. We survived Gustav with only minor damage (our fan on our front patio looks like a pretzel and we have 2 huge trees down in our back yard. But our house and family is safe!

Run...Gustav is coming!!

Hurricane Gustav is headed straight for my house according to the center of this cone. So all hands are on deck to prepare for a major hurricane. I'm just so glad we went on the cruise last week and not next week...speaking of cruise, pictures will be posted ASAP (unless Gustav doesn't let me!).

Have I told you lately...

My husband is so wonderful. He really is. Of course there are times when I probably think the exact opposite but I just seem to forget all the small things he does for me. Yesterday when I got into my car after work I had a little purple sheet of paper on my driver side seat. It simply said, "Hope you have a great day. I love you!" Awww, it brought tears to my eyes. Well actually it made me cry. Something so small and simple means so much to me. It was the time it took him to get to my car and put the note in there and not to mention that he even thought of that on his own! He's great!! And this got me thinking of some small things I can do for him to let him know I'm thinking about him. He doesn't like or want flowers so thats out of the questions. Anyone have any good ideas?

And did I mention how excited I am about going on a cruise in only 4 days! Woo hoo. I can't wait. We're going to have a blast. I should have a HUGE post full of pictures when we return next Saturday.

Crystal Beach

We went to Crystal Beach, TX last weekend for a fun vacation with 11 of our friends. We stayed in a 2 bedroom beach house and squeezed in 13 people. Needless to say we had a blast. Here are a few pictures from the weekend.





We had a blast the entire weekend. We went Kemah, TX the first night and the went to Schlitterbahn on Friday. We went out on The Stand in Galveston on Friday night. The ferry ride was horrible. It took atleast 1 hour just to get onto the ferry every time we rode it. We relaxed on the beach all day Saturday and Saturday night we went for a walk on the beach. Before we even made it out of the yard MJ fell down 7 steps and busted up his foot (atleast it wasn't Tommy getting hurt this time)! As we were walking on the beach we saw some fireworks going off. Apparently it is legal to pop fireworks on the beach. We it just so happen that this time the fireworks caught a yard on fire and almost caught a beach house on fire. It was pretty bad but luckily the local volunteer fire department made it on time and was able to save the house. The pier and fence caught on fire though.




We had a blast with everyone and now we're getting excited for our cruise in a few weeks.

103.7 degree fever is never good

Tommy hasn't been feeling well since Monday and we checked his temperature Wednesday morning and it was 101. So he stayed home from work and went to the doctor around lunch time. He wasn't showing any other symptoms except he had a little back pain. So the doctor did some blood work and gave him an antibotic and said the results from the blood would be in later in the week.
We'll Wednesday afternoon he was laying in bed shaking because he was so cold, so I checked his temperature and it was 103.7!! So I freaked out and rushed him to the ER. 2 hours later his temperature was down to 101.5 and all the doctor at the ER could tell us was that he could run a urine sample and take a chest X-ray but that Tommy should just take tylenol. So Tommy got fed up and decided to leave the hospital. So here we are at home just taking tylenol and not knowing whats wrong. The doctor just called and said the blood work just came back and everything looked normal. So we have no clue why his body temperature is so high. I hope he gets better soon. Keep him in your prayers.

~Stacey

Toledo Bend

We went to Toledo Bend July 11-13 for the annual Dupre vacation and we had a blast. We go every year with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and we always have a great time. Its about 30-40 people all sleeping in one HUGE lodge. We fish, water ski, tube, ride jet skis, etc. This year we decided to bring our dog, Cajun. He's a year old chocolate lab. We bought a wireless electric fence and collar and he did so well. He stayed near everyone and he didn't jump on the kids or eat anything that was left outside. He was a very good dog.

My uncle Matt and cousin Chris had a secret agent mission on the Saturday night. They did a mass massacre of wasp that were nested above the back door. Uncle Matt has this bug zapper that looks like a miniature tennis racket so they were swinging at wasp for a few hours. It was hiliarous, especially when Chris got stung on his stomach because he wouldn't leave the wasp alone. I took a bunch of pictures that i need to download to my computer so I can post them.

We're having a surprise 60th birthday party of Tommy's dad this Sunday. It should be alot of fun. Tommy and a few other fireman are cooking jambalaya, I did a slideshow of a bunch of pictures of Tommy's dad, and Tommy's mom is decorating the hall. She said there should be about 70 people coming.

And next weekend we're going to Crystal Beach. We're going to Schlitterbahn in Galveston one day which I am very excited about. I love rollercoasters and water slides so that should be blast. We have 13 people coming and we're staying in a house that only sleeps 11 -- should be interesting. I'll definately take alot of pictures that weekend. Vacations, vacations...I love the summer time!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Working out

I joined a gym last week and started going to aerobics. I want to lose a few pounds and I really like group exercise so I figured this would be the best for me. I went Tuesday and twice on Thursday (yes TWICE). So needless to say I was sore. Well then Tommy and I decided to go to Tunica Falls on Friday and went hiking for about 5 hours. We hiked about 3 or 4 miles UP HILL!! I was hurting. Here is a pic of one of the waterfall.




So hopefully I can continue with the aerobics. I hope to go at least 3 times a week.